Introducing ‘Concept Question’ writing assignments into upper-level engineering courses

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we introduce ‘Concept Questions,’ a weekly writing assignment that has been incorporated into multiple upper-level engineering courses at a single university with the intent of enhancing students’ conceptual understanding of the course content. To explore the influence of this activity on students in these courses, we compared students’ scores on the Concept Question assignments with their final exam scores, analysed students’ open-ended responses to questions regarding their learning in the course, and surveyed students who had taken these courses in previous semesters to understand how the Concept Question assignments may have influenced their learning approaches in subsequent courses. Our analysis revealed that students highlighted a variety of learning outcomes from the Concept Questions assignments and their performance on the assignments was correlated with their final exam scores. However, most students did not report that these assignments had changed their learning approaches overall. This paper supports prior work suggesting that such assignments can be helpful in individual engineering courses, but further work is needed to explore student learning across courses.

KEYWORDS:

• conceptual understanding
• writing assignments
• learning approaches
• student perspectives‌

Acknowledgements

Learning designer Esther Fink helped in the original application of these questions. Melanie Fleming assisted in the ethics application.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kirsten A. Davis

Kirsten A. Davis is an assistant professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her research explores the intentional design and assessment of global engineering programs, student development through experiential learning, and approaches for teaching and assessing systems thinking skills. Kirsten holds a B.S. in Engineering & Management from Clarkson University and an M.A.Ed. in Higher Education, M.S. in Systems Engineering, and Ph.D. in Engineering Education, all from Virginia Tech.

William A. Mogg

William A. Mogg is a Chemical Engineer, an educator and a musician. Will is passionate about engineering education which delivers maximum value for students: challenging students with new ways thinking and seeing the world, encouraging conceptual rather than procedural learning, and motivating and engaging students in lifelong learning.

David P. Callaghan

Dr. David P. Callaghan graduated from the Queensland University of Technology (BE Civil-Hons) in 1993 and The University of Queensland (PhD focusing on Coastal Engineering) in 2005. He commenced his professional career within structural, flooding and drainage engineering. Since 2006, David has been actively involved in coastal engineering research and now holds an academic position at The University of Queensland. His main interests includes extreme value beach erosion and flood levels for planning and development and how climate change impact these. He is part of a large group of applied researchers working to save the Great Barrier Reef and teaches from first year civil engineering to through capstone design in the natural environment.

Greg R. Birkett

Associate Professor Greg R. Birkett is an academic in the School of Chemical Engineering and Deputy Associate Dean in the Faculty of Engineering Architecture and IT at the University of Queensland. Greg is a Teaching and Research academic who works in applied and fundamental chemical engineering research, teaching leadership, and teaching innovation. His teaching ranges from large first year classes in thermodynamics to capstone Master's design courses. Dr Birkett's current interests include curriculum development, modelling, and mapping and the development of professional and transferrable skills across degrees.

David B. Knight

David B. Knight is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education and Special Assistant to the Dean for Strategic Plan Implementation at Virginia Tech. He is also Director of Research of the Academy for Global Engineering at Virginia Tech and is affiliate faculty with the Higher Education Program. His research tends to be at the macro-scale, focused on a systems-level perspective of how engineering education can become more effective, efficient, and inclusive, tends to leverage large-scale institutional, state, or national data sets, and considers the intersection between policy and organizational contexts. He has B.S., M.S., and M.U.E.P. degrees from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in Higher Education from Pennsylvania State University.

Katherine R. O’Brien

Associated Professor Katherine R. O'Brien (BE Chemical Hons I, BSc, PhD) is Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland. Kate leads the chemical-environmental engineering program, and applies mathematical modelling in to bridge gaps between disciplines in teams tackling sustainability problems. Kate is passionate about finding and sharing practical, effective methods to teach engineering students the skills needed to tackle unsustainable practices and other complex, open-ended problems: critical thinking, systems thinking, strategic thinking, creativity, effective teamwork and communication.